The Death of Draco Malfoy
by One Raindrop Raises the Sea
Summary: Returning to Hogwarts after the Second Wizarding War, Draco Malfoy was expecting a difficult seventh year. He, however, wasn't expecting to be found dead before Christmas. With the help of a clever Ravenclaw ghost, Draco searches for truth behind his inconvenient demise. Obvious Character Death.


**Warnings: Some gore/violence, mentions of suicide/suicidal thoughts, and death.  
**

Prologue: Sleeping Murder

Death: a five letter word so natural, yet so unfathomable to human beings who spend so much of their time in motion: regretting, living, worrying.

I should have told you this **yesterday.**

What do you want **to be** when you grow up?

I have to do this **now.**

Did you hear what he **did** last night?!

You can give it to me **tomorrow**.

Past, Present, and Future.

Humans are conditioned to exist in the three states to survive. They have to learn from mistakes, react to their environment, and plan for the worst.

But, what of death? Can humans plan for death? No, not speaking of the couple that takes out life insurance nor the old and sick man saying his last goodbyes to teary eyed love ones. Can a human imagine being dead in a day? An hour? A minute? One second the body flushed and fleshy, and the mind fixated on time; the next: dead, all signs of rosy cheeks, pursed lips, warm fingertips gone. All that remains is pale flesh, slowly retracting and disintegrating from the bone that in time becomes nothing more than dust, as if the memories and desires and hopes never existed. Could this be imagined?

What of dying? Can they understand what it feels like to die? Is it quick, is all taken from you with your last gasped breath? Or is it slow, a drawn out process as life drained like a leech attached to the body? Are they filled with gnawing pain before the end? Or perhaps it is as being lulled into sleep. Then, perhaps death is just a dream.

If that is the case then Draco Malfoy was having a nightmare.

* * *

The golden glow of the morning shone through the window of the Slytherin common room, rousing Draco Malfoy up from his slumber. It was rarity for Draco to sleep well nowadays with the horrors of the war haunting him at every moment, but last night had granted him peace in a dreamless, euphoric state. It was as if the burdens of the previous year have been lifted and left for dead in the past.

He sat on the side of the four-poster bed and warmed himself in the sun. He imagined he must have looked much like a snake, inching his head towards the warmth as he closed his eyes and soaked in the liveliness of the day. The scene would confirm the theory that subscribed by several that he was a coldblooded reptile; the same several that were making his second seventh year a living hell. However, it was a day without a night of bloodcurdling dreams, waking up wet with sweat and tears along with the occasional dark spot on his trousers, and spending the day with the always growing abscess filled with his shame and hatred and anger and regret as well as every other dangerous emotion that would elicit suspicion in his watch dogs. He cared little of these things on this day. The sun was out and he was warm.

Opening his eyes and squinting into the light, he saw figures swooshing past. He focused on the figures the luminosity of light dimmed allowing him to see the greenery of Hogwart's Quidditch pitch. The figures slowed to a state of recognition; all five of them wearing deep green cloaks. Blaize Zabini hovered at the far left with Theodore Nott next to him. The subdued pair wore small smiles upon their relaxed faces as they watched the other four muck about. Daphne Greengrass circled the Keepers post in figure eights and zig zags, her long hair floating elegantly behind her in waves of golden blonde. Gregory Goyle concentrated earnestly to balance a quaffle on his fingertips, his eyes crossing every time he dropped it. Vincent Crabbe was closest to the window and at sight of Draco he flew to him, tapping on the window with a stubby finger.

Draco waved back, porcelain skin white in the sun's brilliance. He flexed his slender fingers, watching the muscles move down unblemished forearm. Unblemished?

He sat back down on the duvet and traced a finger across the skin where the scars of the skull and snake use to be, as Crabbe continued his tapping. A sudden searing pain pierced the back of his head causing a hand to clutch the spot involuntarily to assess the damage. Finding nothing, the pain ending as abruptly as it started, confusion and hints of panic filled him. He resumed observing his arm, more frantically as the time without an answer increases.

The tapping became louder, a hollow sound echoed through the room at even intervals worsening Draco's panic. He turned to face his annoyance, but freezing when the sight of flesh peeling from Crabbe's finger, charred bone revealed and continuing to tap. The skin slowly receded from the arm and up the shoulder, leaving the once white bone blackened, muscle and fat dripping off in greasy clumps. The blistering pain returned as he watched the degrading of his friend's flesh reach his neck, the boy's face furious and howling as skull was revealed.

Spinning on his foot, Draco dashed to the bathroom; tripping, he spewed bile on the floor below. Head dizzy from pain and nausea, he collapsed on the ground.

He took deep breaths in an attempt to try to regain sanity, but he could still hear the tapping.

And then he blacked out.


End file.
